The JOKE (12 page)

Cenek took up a position in front of the picture (we were waiting for the political officer to arrive and had the room to ourselves) and gave us a talk that went something like this: Now, here to the right of the sergeant, that's Alena, the first woman I ever had. I was sixteen at the time, and she was the wife of an officer, so she should feel right at home here. I've painted her the way she looked at the time, you can be sure she's gone downhill since, but even then she was on the plump side, right here (he pointed his finger) around the thighs. Because she was much more attractive from the rear, I've done another one of her here (he walked over to one end of the picture and pointed to a woman who, showing her bare behind to the audience, seemed to be leaving). You see that her royal rump is just a little oversized, but that's the way we like them, isn't it? And this one (he pointed to the girl on the sergeant's left), this one is Lojzka, I was much more experienced by the time I got to her, she had small breasts (he pointed to them), long legs (he pointed to them), and very pretty features (he pointed to them

too), and she was in my year at school. And this is our model from live drawing class, I knew her by heart and so did all twenty of us guys, because she always used to stand in the middle of the classroom while we learned how to paint the human body, but none of us ever touched her, her mother was always there waiting at the end of the class to whisk her off, so she showed herself off to us, God bless her, with all due propriety. Now, this one (he pointed to a woman lolling on a stylized divan), this one was a whore from the word go, come up a little closer (we did), see that little mark on her belly? It's a cigarette burn they say she got from a jealous woman she was having an affair with because, yes, gentlemen, she liked it both ways, her sexuality was a real accordion, gentlemen, where you could find just about anything, we'd all be able to cram ourselves in there, just as we are, with our wives, our girlfriends, our kids, and our great-grandparents to boot.

Cenek was obviously approaching the climax of his statement when the political commissar entered the room and told us to sit down. The commissar was used to Cenek's murals from the days of the old commander; he paid no attention to the new picture and began reading aloud from some pamphlet elucidating the differences between socialist and capitalist armies. Just as Cenek's commentary was fading away in our minds and we were settling down to our own quiet reveries, the boy commander appeared in the room.

He had come to check up on the commissar's talk, but before he could receive the commissar's report, he was transfixed by what he saw on the far wall; he did not even permit the commissar to go on with his talk but barked at Cenek, What is the meaning of this? Cenek broke ranks and planted himself in front of the picture and began: Here we have an allegorical representation of the significance of the Red Army for the struggle of our nation; here (he pointed to the sergeant) is the Red Army; at his side (he pointed to the officer's wife) is symbolized the working class, and here on the other side (he pointed to his schoolmate) is the symbol of the month of February. These (he pointed to the other ladies) are the symbols of liberty, of victory, here is the symbol of equality; and here (he pointed to the officer's wife displaying her behind) we see the bourgeoisie making its exit from the stage of history.

Cenek fell silent and the commander declared that the mural was an insult to the Red Army and must be removed at once; and that Cenek would have to take the consequences. I asked (under my breath) why. The commander heard me and asked if I had any objections. I said I liked the picture. The commander said he wasn't surprised; it was perfect for masturbators. I reminded him that Myslbek had sculpted liberty as a nude, that Ales had a famous painting of the Jizera River as three nudes; that painters had done this forever.

The boy commander gave me a dubious look and repeated his order that the mural be taken down. Nevertheless, we may have managed to confuse him, because Cenek was not punished; but the commander had taken a dislike to him and to me as well. Cenek was soon up on charges, and a little later so was I.

This is how it happened: One day our company was working with picks and shovels in an out-of-the-way section of camp; under the none too watchful eye of a lethargic corporal, we spent most of the time leaning on our shovels discussing this and that, and failed to notice the boy commander observing us from a distance. We only discovered him when we heard his stern voice say: "Private Jahn, come here!" I grabbed my shovel energetically and went and stood at attention before him. "Is that your idea of work?" he asked. I can't quite remember how I responded, but I know I wasn't insolent, because I had no intention of making life in the barracks any harder for myself or needlessly antagonizing a man who had complete power over me. But after my innocent, even embarrassed reply, his eyes hardened, he stepped up close to me, grabbed hold of my arm, and flipped me over his shoulder in a perfectly executed jujitsu move. Then he squatted down beside me and pinned me to the ground (I had made no attempt to defend myself, I was simply astonished). "Had enough?" he asked in a loud voice (so everyone could hear). I told him I had. He ordered me on my feet and announced to the assembled company, "I am giving Private Jahn two days' detention. Not because he was insolent.

His insolence, as you saw, I took care of with my own hands. No, I am giving him two days for lying down on the job. And next time the rest of you can expect the same." Then, turning on his heel, he strode off in style.

At the time, I felt nothing but hatred for him, and hatred shines too bright a light on things, depriving them of relief. I saw him merely as a vindictive, wily rat. Now I see him above all as a young man playing a role. The young can't help playacting; themselves incomplete, they are thrust by life into a completed world where they are compelled to act
fully grown.
They therefore adopt forms, patterns, models—those that are in fashion, that suit, that please—and enact them.

Our boy commander too was incomplete, and he suddenly found himself at the head of a group of soldiers he couldn't possibly understand; if he was able to come to grips with the situation, it was only because so much of what he had read and heard offered him a ready-made mask: the cold-blooded hero of the cheap thrillers, the young man with nerves of steel who outwits the criminal gang, the man of few words, calm, cool, with a dry wit and confidence in himself and the might of his own muscles. The more conscious he was of his boyish appearance, the more fanatical his devotion to the role of superman, the more forced his performance.

But was this the first time I encountered adolescent actors? At the time of the postcard interrogation I had just turned twenty, and my interrogators couldn't have been more than a year or two older. They too were above all boys covering their incomplete faces with the mask they admired most, the mask of the hard, ascetic revolutionary. And what about Marketa? Hadn't she modeled herself after the female savior in some B movie? And Zemanek, suddenly seized by the sentimental pathos of morality? Wasn't that a role as well? And myself? Didn't I run back and forth among several roles until I was tripped up and lost my balance?

Youth is terrible: it is a stage trod by children in buskins and a variety of costumes mouthing speeches they've memorized and fanatically believe but only half understand.

And history is terrible because it so often ends up a playground for the immature; a playground for the young Nero, a playground for the young Bonaparte, a playground for easily roused mobs of children whose simulated passions and simplistic poses suddenly metamorphose into a catastrophically real reality.

When I think of all this, my whole set of values goes awry and I feel a deep hatred towards youth, coupled with a certain paradoxical indulgence towards the criminals of history, whose crimes I suddenly see as no more than a frightful agitation of the immature.

And when I think of the immature, I think also of Alexej; he too played his great role, one that went beyond both his reason and his experience. He had something in common with our commander: he too looked younger than his age; but (in contrast with the commander) there was nothing attractive about his boyishness: he had a puny build, shortsighted eyes behind thick glasses, skin covered with the pimples of eternal puberty.

He'd begun his service at an infantry officers candidate school but was suddenly transferred to us. The notorious political trials were brewing, and in many halls (of the Party, of justice, of the police) hands were unceasingly raised to strip the accused of confidence, honor, and freedom; Alexej was the son of a highly placed Communist official who had recently been arrested.

He appeared one day in our company and was given Stana's orphaned bunk. He showed us the same reserve I had shown my new companions at first; and when it became known that he was a member of the Party (he hadn't yet been expelled), the others began watching what they said in his presence.

As soon as he found out I had been a Party member myself, he opened up to me a bit; he confided that come what might, he was determined to pass the supreme test life had placed before him and never betray the Party. Then he read me a poem he wrote (the first he had ever written) when he heard he was to be transferred to our regiment. It included this quatrain:

Do as you please, Comrades,

Make a dog of me, spit on me too.

But in my dog's mask, under your spittle, Comrades,

I'll remain faithfully in the ranks with you.

I understood what he meant, because I had felt just the same a year before. But by now I felt it much less painfully: Lucie, my usherette into the everyday world, had removed me from the regions where the Alexejs live in desperate torment.

11

While the boy commander was busy setting up his new regime, I was concerned mainly with getting myself a pass; Lucie's roommates had gone off to work in the fields, and I hadn't been let out of camp for a month; the commander had taken careful note of my face and name, and in the army that's the worst thing that can happen. He lost no opportunity to make it clear that every hour of my life depended on his fancy. As for passes, the outlook was grim; at the very beginning he'd announced that leave would be granted only once a month, and then only to those who regularly volunteered for Sunday shifts; this being so, we all volunteered; but it was a miserable existence, working all month without any time away from the mines, and when one or another of us actually did get a Saturday off and staggered back at two in the morning, he went to work the next day dead tired and looked like a sleepwalker for a long time thereafter.

I started working Sunday shifts too, although that in itself was no guarantee of a pass: the credit earned by a Sunday shift could easily be offset by a badly made bed or some other such infraction of the rules. Nevertheless, the vanity of power manifests itself not only in cruelty but also (though less often) in gentleness. And so, some weeks having passed, it pleased the boy commander to be generous, and at the last moment, he granted me an evening pass, two days before Lucie's roommates were due back.

I was trembling with excitement when the old woman at the desk signed me in and told me to go up to the fifth floor, where I knocked on a door at the far end of a long hallway.

The door opened, but Lucie stood hidden behind it, and all I could see was the room itself, which at first glance bore no resemblance whatever to a dormitory room; I seemed to have entered a room made ready for some religious celebration: the table was decorated with a bunch of bright gold dahlias, the window flanked by two enormous rubber plants, and everything (the vase, the bed, the floor, even the pictures) was festooned with green sprays (asparagus ferns, I recognized them immediately), as if Jesus Christ were expected to ride in on a donkey.

I took Lucie in my arms (she was still hiding behind the door) and kissed her. She was wearing the black evening gown and high heels I had bought for her the day we went shopping for clothes. She stood there like a priestess amidst all the solemn greenery.

We closed the door behind us, and only then did I become aware that I was in an ordinary room and that the verdant decor overlay four iron beds, four scratched night tables, a larger table, and three chairs. But nothing could dampen the delight that had overcome me the minute Lucie opened the door: for the first time in a month, I was out of camp for a few hours. Not only that: for the first time in a year I was in a
small room;
the intoxicating breath of intimacy that enveloped me was nearly overwhelming.

Until then, whenever I went walking with Lucie, the open spaces kept me tied to the barracks and my lot there; the ever-present air currents were like an invisible chain binding me to the camp gate and its inscription we serve the people; I felt there was nowhere I could ever stop "serving the people"; I hadn't been inside a small private room for an entire year.

It was a completely new situation: I had the feeling that for three hours I would be totally free; I could fearlessly (and against all military regulations) throw off not only my cap and belt but also my shirt, trousers, boots, everything, and I could even jump up and down on them if I so desired; I could do whatever I pleased and never worry about being observed; besides, the room was nice and warm, and the warmth and freedom went to my head like piping hot wine; I put my arms around Lucie, kissed her, and took her over to the green-bedecked bed. The sprays on the bed (it was covered by a cheap gray blanket) moved me deeply; the only way I could interpret them was as symbols of wedlock; I was struck (and touched) by the idea that the

most ancient customs unconsciously resonated in Lucie's simplicity, that
she wished to bid her virginity farewell with all due ceremony.

It was some time before I realized that although Lucie was responding to my kisses and embraces, she was also holding back. Her lips kissed me hungrily but remained closed; she pressed her whole body up against mine, but when I slipped my hand under her skirt to feel the skin of her legs, she pulled away. I realized that the blind, giddy spontaneity with which I wanted to abandon myself with her remained one-sided; I remember at that point (no more than five minutes after I'd entered the room) feeling my eyes well up with tears of disappointment.